Tradies in Woden

The slope is the whole story

Hughes, Garran, Curtin and O'Malley are full of blocks that drop off the street or fall away out the back. It changes the price of nearly every outdoor trade.

• Fencing needs stepped or raked panels instead of a straight run. More labour, more material.
• Landscaping usually means retaining before anything else happens, and above a certain height that's engineered work.
• Machinery access is the great unknown. If the bobcat can't get down the side, the whole lot gets done by hand and the quote reflects it.
• Drainage matters more. Water that runs harmlessly across a flat Gunners block sits against a Woden retaining wall instead.
• Decks sit higher off the ground, which changes both the engineering and whether it needs approval.

What comes in from the valley

• Original kitchens and bathrooms going out for the first time since the house was built. Coloured tiles, a bath nobody's used since 1994, and no membrane behind any of it.
• Switchboard and safety switch work, same story as Belco — old boards meeting modern appliances.
• Roof and gutter work on tiles of a certain age, plus a lot of leaf clearing off mature street trees.
• Retaining walls being repaired or replaced, usually timber sleepers that have finally given up.
• Heating swaps, old ducted gas out, reverse cycle in.
• Downsizer renos — long-term owners doing the place up rather than moving, which usually means whole-house work done properly.

Phillip's its own thing

Phillip and the Woden town centre are offices, showrooms, workshops and a growing pile of apartments — commercial maintenance, strata and fit-out work rather than the house jobs that fill the rest of the valley. Handy if you're already down there for a job at Westfield or the hospital.

Suburbs we cover

Mawson and Southlands sit at the southern end, close enough to Tuggers that plenty of trades cover both in a day.

What people round here ask for most